Celebrating 10 Years!

Ten years ago today, I decided that I needed to bring dinner to our new youth pastor and his family.  I didn't figure that I would ever really like them.  Let's face it . . . they could never be the Daniels!  BUT . . . I decided that I ought to do the right thing . . . like it or not.

I never would have imagined that that night was the beginning of one of God's greatest blessings to our family!

I'm so thankful for a decade's worth of friendship that has been so sweet!  We love you guys!

We don't often get pictures that include the adults, but we decided that we needed to get some good ones today!

With my BFF!  : )  Aren't we cute!?

What a crew! 

In 10 years we've gone from a group of six (Jonah was 11 mos and Ali was 6 mos) to a group of 11!

Looking forward to many, many great years!

Halloween (A Bit Early!)

**Can you believe it!?  I've blogged 3 CURRENT events in 5 days!  Amazing!**

Okay . . . so why am I posting Halloween pics when it isn't even Halloween yet?  That's a good question!

We usually do a "Grandparents Halloween" a few days early.  That way the grandparents get to see everyone and we don't have to dedicate our entire Halloween to driving all over creation.  It's a win-win situation!

The other perk to doing things this way is that we get better pictures.  Dressing up for "real" Halloween usually includes gloves, and extra layers of clothing that are necessary for warmth, but take away from the photo-op.  So, yes . . . most of our Halloween pics are taken early . . . but there will certainly be more to come!

So here we go . . .

Here comes the Bride . . .

Yes, there's nothing better than reusing those fancy dresses. Thanks to Uncle Joel and Aunt Laura's wedding, she has a great Halloween costume!

When asked who she was marrying she said "Daddy!" 

I think it's sweet, but sorry babe . . . he's already taken : )

I took this one in response to Julie saying "Mommy, I want you to take my picture!"  I thought it was cute.

Megan as the Ladybug

She was actually supposed to be Ariel from the Little Mermaid.  I bought a $7 costume for her after Halloween last year.  We tried it on this past Wednesday and it was too big!  : )  So we had to scavenge.  Tights and leotard are borrowed from Aubrey.  Skirt and shell are made from my old bathrobe that I happily cut up.  The headband we actually had in our dress up clothes.

Ali as Hermione Granger

Ali was definitely the most excited of the four of them.  She's been thinking about this costume for a long time!

I mad her tie and robe.  I even knitted her scarf!  Great fun!

Emma as the Mad Scientist

This costume was so much fun to put together!  Thanks to Jonah for the labcoat, Jacob for the shirt and Aunt Lydia for the Erlenmeyer Flask (Emma might just have a fit if one more person calls it a beaker!)

Can you say "Sublimation?"

Emma really hammed up her role as the evening wore on.  I'm sure she be quite a piece of work on Halloween!

More to come in a few days!

Bookworm

My girls have always loved books.  There's no secret there.  I've purposefully taught them all to read at a young age because I really wanted to develop a love for reading.  3 of the 4 are reading independently.

Julie had her first reading lesson on her 4th birthday . . . and we haven't touched the book again since then.  I thought it was funny that she already knew the two sounds that were introduced in the first lesson.  We all had a good chuckle.  That's so Julie.

A few weeks ago, her Sunday School teacher had a funny story for us.  He told the class that they were going to read from the book of Deuteronomy.  Julie then piped up:  "I know where that is!"  As her teacher was thinking "Yeah, sure you do!" she picked up her Bible and promptly turned to the book of Deuteronomy.  Weird.

Then last week I took her to the doctor's office.  While we were waiting, she picked up Green Eggs and Ham and pretty much started reading it to me.  Granted, she pronounced a lot of things wrong (i.e. "make" was macky) but she definitely got the idea.  She did the same thing to Aaron the next day, and he came to me saying "Ummm . . . honey . . . I think we really need to get moving on formal reading lessons for Julie . . . "

So . . . the next day I pulled out the book. 

We use Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.  It's a fabulous book!  One lesson per day . . . if you actually do it 5 days a week (which has never been a strength of mine!) you could get through it in 5 months.  I'm lucky if we do it in a year . . . but that's no big deal.  We always got to the end.  : )

I sat down with her for 20-30 minutes and she whipped through 20 lessons.  Yes . . . my child has pretty much taught herself how to read.  By the end of the next day, she was to lesson 50.  The lessons are getting longer and more challenging, so she will definitely slow down from here on out, but I will be really surprised if she isn't done before Christmas.

Then, today in the van she was reading a book and she said "Mom, this is a *insert strange word that didn't make sense to me* book"  She pronounced this "strange word"  beg (short e)- in - ers.  Accent on 'beg'.  I was confused by what she was saying.  I thought she was making up words and being silly with her sisters.  Then she told me that she read the word herself.  She pronounced the "e" wrong and put the emphasis on the wrong syllable . . . but she read the word "beginners" . . . that's definitely a big step up from "goat" and "kitten."

SO . . . all of that to say . . . I am very curious to see what God has in store for this little munchkin!  I wish I could take credit.  This time I was just the slacker mom  : )  Really I think that what we have here is a spunky little peanut who wants very badly to keep up with her sisters!  : )  I guess there are worse things that she could learn from them!

Pumpkin Patch

Okay . . . my goal is to get caught up on some blogging this week.  I'd really like to add one post per day until I get all of our major later summer/early fall events.  I will be back dating them, so scroll on down over these next few days.

Yes, I'm starting with the current stuff!

Today was our annual trip to the Pumpkin Patch with the Alligoods.  It's always a favorite all around. : )

I LOVE taking pictures at the Pumpkin Patch!  If you ask my kids why we go . . . they'll say it's to pick out a pumpkin.  If you ask me . . . it's to take pictures!  I LOVE all of the orange.  Plus it's fun to compare pictures year after year. 

So without further ado . . . here we go . . .

Emma & Karis

Jonah & Ali

The Three Musketeers (aka the Three Stooges)  : )

Julie, Meg & Aubrey

The Fabulous Four

It was windy out there!

We sure have an awesome group of kids!

I love him!

Ali took this one!  We love these guys!

LOOK! 

All 6 of us, in one picture,

and everyone is looking,

and everyone has their eyes open! 

It's a miracle!  : )

I thought this was cute!  J pulling all three of the Littles in the pumpkin cart.  They thought it was awesome!

Go Blue Angels!!

(Okay . . . so I admit it.  I'm totally a blog slacker.  I have had tons of stuff to post and haven't done it.  My excuse is that we reformatted the laptop and I haven't gotten all of my software back on it, so I can't edit my photos.  But this one is a cell phone pic, so here we go . . . )

Our girls started playing soccer last fall.  They played 10 games last season.  Not only did they not win a single game . . . they never even scored a goal.  It was their first year together as a team, and they were definitely overmatched by teams who have been playing together since they were in kindergarten!

This season they're back.  They played a practice game due to a rainout and lost 0-4.  They played a double header last week and lost both.  Not a single goal.  They were definitely feeling discouraged!

But last night made their entire season!!  When the game began, it was obvious that we were more evenly matched than we ever had been.  But they still scored on us.  We were down 0-1.  Bummer.

Then the tide turned and we actually scored our first goal.  You should have heard the parents on the sidelines!  We were a little nuts.  We didn't need to win.  Just a goal . . . that's all we were hoping for!

And then, a few minutes later . . . goal #2!  Yay!!  Then we started praying that time would pass quickly and we could hold onto our lead!  : )

And we did!  I've never seen a happier bunch of kids!  All of their hard work finally paid off!

Here are Ali, Karis & Emma, so excited!

Back to School

Back to school already!  I can't believe it!  After a whirlwind of a summer, we're kicking off a new year.

Ali - 5th Grade

Emma - 3rd Grade

Meg - 1st Grade

Julie - Pre-K

The Fab Four!

Looking forward to a great year!

Happy Birthday Emma!

I can't believe how quickly nine years have passed!  She started out as my teeny little baby (6 lb 14 oz - seemed very teeny compared to Ali at 8 lb 5 oz!) and has grown to be our spunky, athletic, fun young lady!  Where has the time gone?? 

Happy Birthday, Dear Megan!

I can't believe it!  Six years ago today, little Megan Elizabeth graced us with her presence.  I enjoyed a little trip down memory lane today . . .

Happy birthday sweet girl!

Smile!

Meg lost her first tooth!  We discovered that it was loose a few days ago when she complained that her tooth hurt.  She wiggled and wiggled and wiggled, and then finally, I pulled it out.  She was a trooper, and is now very excited!

Here it is!

The tooth fairy was a slacker last night . . . but thankfully she remembered before Meg did.  And, thankfully she happened to have a Sacagawea dollar on hand.  So, now my little peanut running around talking about how the tooth fairy left her a gold dollar.

Right now she has a thank you note in her tooth fairy pillow "Thank you for the gold dollar" with a picture of a horse drawn on it.  So sweet!

Fourth of July

We had a great Fourth of July this year!  We enjoyed several hours at Grandma Pattons house

Fun with the Slip 'n' Slide!

Meg had a great time with Anna (her 2nd cousin)

Ali & Emma decided to play softball this year.  Of course, they changed their minds before their first at bat, but not before Daddy could give Ali some batting tips.  I love it!

Once we left the Pattons, we came back to our house to swim.  Usually we spend the evening with the Alligood family, and we still did that this year . . . but we were short a few!  Jason was in Louisville, and Jonah & Karis were in Indiana with Grammy & Papa.  So we enjoyed our time with Amber & Aubrey . . . but we certainly missed the others!

Emma, Julie, Aubrey, Meg & Ali

The 4 Patton Girlies

There were no fireworks to watch in Pacific on the 4th this year, so Daddy shot off a few in our backyard (a first for us - I don't like fireworks!)  The girls loved watching that (from far away!  : )  )  We also did our usual sparklers, black snakes and whipper snappers.  It was great fun!  Amber & Aubrey even stayed the night, so once the kiddos went to bed, the adults enjoyed some fun chat time!

Pool Progress

Okay, so I've been a slacker in the blog department here lately!  : )

Basically, our lives have been eaten up with outdoor projects . . . namely the pool and the deck.  Here is a brief summary of our progress:

May 20, 2010:  After quite a bit of rain, this is what our pool area looked like.  We had started excavating it ourselves (or I should say, "myself") but Aaron's bum knee made that an insanely ridiculous goal.  We ended up paying our builder to bring in the Bobcat to do it for us!

I didn't take any picture in between these two stages.  Probably because I had no desire to remember what a pain in the rear end this pool was!  : )  A bum knee and RAIN made this a slow process.  Thankfully we have fabulous friends who helped us take down the pool (it was given to us by the son of our old neighbor in Eureka - Thanks John! - so we had to take it apart and move it), move the pool, and put the pool back together.  (A BIG thanks to Jason Alligood, Brian Elliott, Jim Younce, Joel Patton, Mike Thebeau & Craig Tweedy!  I owe you all a pool party!)

June 13, 2010:  The pool is ALMOST all the way together

June 17, 2010:  Swimming for the first time!  Of course, we are having to use Aaron's aluminum ladder to get in and out because we still have no deck to put our deck ladder on!

Four very happy little girls!

We finished the pool and moved almost immediately into building the deck.  (Because of the previously mentioned ladder situation.)  We workd through some heat advisory days (not so much a favorite!) but thankfully had a pool we could jump in every now and then!  : )  By this time, Aaron's knee is doing pretty well, so really, he has done most of the deck building.

June 30, 2010:  Our deck actually has some of the floorboards and the girls get to sit on it for the first time!

They immediately asked if they could name it!  : )  It has now been dubbed "The Cardinal."

I'll post again once the deck is completely done!

Fun with the McCauleys

We were so blessed to be able to catch up with the McCauleys again!  They are missionaries to Austria who we first met 2 years ago.  They are back in the States again for the summer, and it was great to see them!

The kiddos had a great time with the piano!

The McCauleys have had a new addition since we last saw them!  It was great to meet Elena for the first time!

Emma & Elena bonded quickly!  Emma loved holding a "baby" and Elena loved Emma's silky jammies.  Emma then got out one of her satin pillow cases and let Elena snuggle with it.  She LOVED that!  She spent a lot of time in Emma's arms, wrapped in a pillow case, sucking her thumb and playing with Emma's hair.  The sweet part is that Emma loved it just as much as Elena did!

All the kiddos together

Emma, Elena, Ali, Kati, Meg & Julie

Of course, I didn't manage to get a pic of Eric & Christy . . .go figure!

We had a great time and are so thankful for their service in Austria!